SMC approves infliximab for child Crohn’s disease

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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7493 p299
15 March 2008

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SMC approves infliximab for child Crohn’s disease

Sovereign, ISM / Science Photo Library

Crohn's disease

Crohn’s disease can be treated with infliximab

Infliximab (Remicade) can be used in Scotland for treatment of paediatric patients with severe active Crohn’s disease, the Scottish Medicines Consortium has decided in its latest round of appraisals. Patients aged six to 17 years who have not responded to conventional treatment, including a cortico-steroid, an immunomodulator and nutrition therapy, or who cannot tolerate such treatments, are now eligible to receive infliximab.

The SMC has also accepted zoledronic acid (Aclasta) 5mg solution for infusion for restricted use for post-menopausal women with osteoporosis who cannot tolerate, or are unsuitable for, oral osteoporosis treatments.

In addition, daptomycin (Cubicin) has been approved for treatment of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia associated with complicated skin and soft tissue infections or with right-sided infective endocarditis, but only for adults with known or suspected meticillin-resistant S aureus infection and on the advice of local microbiologists or infectious diseases specialists. Daptomycin, the SMC says, costs more than some alternative treatments but does not require therapeutic drug monitoring.

The SMC has approved diclofenac injection (Dyloject) for treatment or prevention of pain, used only in the post-operative setting and administered intravenously.

Both follitropin alfa (Pergoveris) and mesalazine 1,200mg gastroresistant prolonged-release tablets (Mezavant XL) have been accepted for their licensed indications.

Correction (22 March 2008)
The Scottish Medicines Consortium rejected salmeterol/fluticasone propionate 50/500µg (Seretide 500 Accuhaler) for the symptomatic treatment of patients with chronic obstructive airways disease (COPD) with a forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) 50 to 60 per cent of predicted normal (pre-bronchodilator) and a history of repeated exacerbations, who have significant symptoms despite regular bronchodilator therapy.

It has not been rejected for all COPD patients as suggested in this article.

Salmeterol/fluticasone 50/500µg (Seretide 500 Accuhaler) was rejected by the consortium for symptomatic treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The SMC has recommended that bevacizumab (Avastin) should not be used for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic renal cell cancer, in combination with interferon alfa-2a, in the absence of a submission from the licence holder.